200 Responses to “Llanelli”

The good people of Llanelli should be cowered to vote Labour…….they should in a democracy vote for who they wish…Plaid want PR voting…lib dems do and labour wants a watered down form…..and this is from someone lending his vote to lib dems to acheive a democratic voting system

Reform of the voting system/proportional representation? Not a topic that I have heard discussed in many Llanelli pubs or in the street when the election has been discussed.

To politicos, especially Liberals, this might be the topic that keeps them awake by night and may be the top of their agenda for Government but lets be honest guys, this is not the burning issue in this election nationally or here in Llanelli. It won’t motivate a single voters that matters – a floating voter in a marginal constitency!

Now, here in Llanelli, while some people won’t vote Plaid in Westminster elections thinking it a wasted vote backing Plaid in a UK election many, many more will vote Plaid as the most effective means of voting Labour out – either as a result of national or local issues.

Plaid have fought a good campaign. Part of me hopes they win because Labour deserve to lose Llanelli. Llanelli really does deserve better. Plaid can win. The Labour vote is going to go down (perhaps a lot) and the Plaid vote is going to go up (again, perhaps a lot).

Both needs to happen for the result to meet in the middle. It is close. Whatever happens, the winner will be lucky to have a 1,000 majority whichever side wins.

As things stand now, Llanelli is too close to call. The Liberals have not had an election campaign whatsoever. The Labour opinion poll ratings counldn’t be lower nationally.

If Plaid can translate the anti-Labour sentiment into a local protest vote (which it seems the Liberals are picking up nationally) then I think Plaid can win here in Llanelli.

From what I have seen and heard locally from sources in all four main parties, my estimation is as follows:-

It is not a burning issue as the people are fed gutter politics by the media/ or the people don’t realise how shabby the system is….fptp has its merits but in an true democratic society it has no real place

From what I’ve heard from other members working in Llanelli, Dr. Myfanwy Davies has been working hard and many local people are saying they haven’t seen Nia. If the Lib Dems take some Labour votes (part of ‘Plebbmania) and Plaid do too (mostly protest votes), Plaid could gain the seat for the first time ever!

The hype from Plaid supporters is out of all proportion to the Wales-wide polls which have appeared. And Griffith has the additional advantage of first-time incumbency. No Plaid supporter has given a convincing explanation of why they will take quite so many votes from Labour this time in particular. Why not 2005? It will take quite a big swing (bigger still with the first-time incumbency effect) for Plaid to win here and I would be surprised to see it.

Pretty much what I expected. A swing to Plaid, but nothing like enough. First-time incumbency again key, but also working-class Welsh voters’ bitter opposition to the Tories has led many who voted for Helen Mary Jones to stick with Labour for Westminster, as the clear alternative government.

Because in 1965 the council decided that the name would be spelt ‘Llanelli’ rather than ‘Llanelly’, and from that date all government agencies were only to use that spelling.

It’s similar to ‘Conwy’ and ‘Conway’, which was changed in 1969 and the latter is never used now at all by locals (though locals pronounce it still as though there were an ‘a’ in the name). Another one is ‘Caernarfon’ and ‘Caernarvon’. This one is more salient due to the fact there is no letter ‘v’ in the Welsh alphabet.

The obsessive pandering to the Welsh language lobby is one of my pet hates in British politics.

While the rest of the world is moving to make their countries more understandableand welcoming to foreign investors and tourists, the Welsh are determined to move the other way, to the massive detriment of their economy.

I have spent a lot of time in Shanghai and Beijing recently. They now have every road sign bilingual in mandarin and English. It is coming to something when China feels it is more important to have roadsigns in English than Wales.

I entirely agree with Hemmlig. And its not like the Welsh people are really all that bothered with learning Welsh either is it? They have had to be penalised over the years if they don’t speak Welsh-such as local authorities in wales refusing to employ people who do not speak Welsh.

…and still Welsh language speakers is way below 50%.

Its about time the Welsh language was left to stand (or fall) on its own two feet without propping up by government and institutions.

I don’t have a strong feeling about the re-assertment of the Welsh language.
I dislike the politically correct name Mumbai though
(not sure it’s a fair point though),
and the Metropolitian British haters went on and on about that Slumdog Millionaire film.

I don’t feel strongly about the elsh speaking Welsh language if that is what they want to do. I’m in no way ‘anti’ Welsh language.

But as I have said on the site in the past, it does irk me to see the Welsh language being pushed forward so forcefully by government and PENALISING people that do not speak it-which is still the large majority of the Welsh people.

If a language is a genuine national language, then it doesn’t need propping up or promoting by government. It should be allowed to stand on its own two feet.

I agree with you some extent on the pandering to the Welsh-speaking lobby, but all these changes were made in the 60s, when there was a great deal less of that, it’s not as though it’s particularly recent.

I asked my dad if there was much opposition to Conwy being changed and he said at the time most people agreed with it. His own home village (Glan Conwy), which lies opposite Conwy, also changed its spelling a couple of years after Conwy and was in a separate county at the time and was in no way a Welsh nationalist village.

It’s also interesting that the original and longest-lived English spelling of Conwy, used for hundreds of years from it first charter is ‘Conwey’, which is pretty much the Welsh pronunciation.

I think if the locals agree to it and there is support for it then a single standard spelling is better. It’s not like Madras becoming Chennai. or Bombay becoming Mumbai as the spelling change didn’t alter the pronunciation fundamentally.

And Calcutta has also now changed, to Kolkata. Even the state capital of Kerala has changed from Trivandrum to Thiruvananthapuram, though the airport is still called Trivandrum, and frankly that’s what the locals still seem to call the city too.
I’d be most interested to see the result here. The polls aren’t good for PC but Helen Mary Jones does seem to be an unusually effective & popular local representative. There have been several knife-edge finishes here in Assembly elections (not at Westminster) and I reckon it could happen again.

I think i’m with the muslims of Bombay on this. Not that I presume to tell the Indians how they choose to name their cities – obviously that is up to them. I just think the BBC etc should not be so ready to take on board these changes. Afterall we still refer to Munich rather than Munchen or Naples rather than Napoli, so why not Bombay, Madras, Peking etc

Matt,
Thanks for your information re – ‘Llanelli’.I am surprised it goes back as far as 1965. Certainly when I was still at school in the early 70s ‘Llanelly’ was in common use.
I have never had a Welsh language in my life – anf if at school in Pembrokeshire now would bitterly resent having it rammed down my throat!

Excuse the typos, its late.
Graham you sound like you have a strange chip on your shoulder about the original brythonic languages……….its like the irrational hatred of native american languages

Can we please not drag this political forum down with these imperialistic views that english is superior….why not bring back the cane my great grandmother was hit with for speaking welsh then?? You may love that?
The fact some villages inside england spoke welsh until at least 1900 means you are speaking rubbish I am afraid, as I have studied this at univeristy and can offer you JSTOR journal links.

Another thing welsh speakers generally score much higher in english GCSEs and A levels than first language english speakers…..due to the benefits of bilingulaism….a notion it seems England and parts of the USA struggles with

Looks like Plaid C haven’t been doing all that well for a little while.
They seem to flatter to deceive.
Do people fear that voting for them in Wales helps the Tories, or have they just not got the infrastructure (or the enthusiam of enough people) like the SNP?